Are Social Media Companies Responsible for Screen Addiction in Kids?

KQED's Forum

KQED

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 30 January 2026

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For years, experts, educators and parents have sounded alarms about the dangers of kids spending too much time on screens and now, artificial intelligence could make some apps even more addicting. A trial started this week in a Los Angeles court on a lawsuit against Meta and YouTube that claims social media companies are responsible for the harmful effects of screen addiction on minors. Nearly a thousand similar cases are expected to go to trial this year nationwide. We’ll talk about the lawsuits, consequences of social media addiction in the age of AI and efforts to hold companies accountable. Guests: Cecilia Kang, tech reporter, The New York Times; author, "An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination" Catherine Price, health and science journalist; author, "How to Break Up With Your Phone" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	from KQED.
0:03.4	Welcome to Forum. I'm Arthy Shahani, in for Alexis Madrigal.
0:07.7	Families, school districts, and states attorneys general are suing big tech, specifically
0:12.9	meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, Google, owner of YouTube, bite dance, owner of TikTok, and Snap.
0:19.1	Plaintiffs claim these firms designed social media products
0:22.9	to be addictive, like slot machines and tobacco, and marketed them to children to get them
0:28.6	hooked early. Jury selection began this week in a lawsuit filed by a girl from Chico, California.
0:35.1	We have with us, Cecilia Kong, a tech reporter with the New York Times,
0:38.6	and co-author of An Ugly Truth, Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination, which is an excellent read.
0:44.7	She's following this case and the broader movement. Cecilia, welcome.
0:49.0	Hi, Arthi. Thanks so much for having me. Thanks for joining. Listen, can you please tell us
0:52.9	about the Chico Plaintiff and why
0:54.8	her family is suing? Yeah, so this plaintiff goes by the initials KGM. She's now 20 years old,
1:03.6	and she began using social media during elementary school, starting with YouTube at the age of eight,
1:10.7	and then she joined Instagram at the age of eight, and then she joined Instagram at
1:13.7	the age of nine. She subscribed then to musically, which is now known as TikTok at 10, and then
1:19.6	Snapchat at 11. So she has used all the platforms that are defending themselves in this trial.
1:27.2	And what she has argued, and her lawyers will argue in this trial,
1:31.2	is that she became really hooked to all of these platforms,
1:36.2	particularly because of the addictive design tools that they say are addictive,
1:43.1	that are used by these companies. And that has led to
1:45.8	a bevy of really difficult issues for her, including her, she has said that she has suffered
	...

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